Fired agency director wants action

    In the span of seven months last year, Gary Blumenthal went from visionary leader of Johnson County Developmental Supports to the unemployment line.

   The JCDS board — serving 500 clients with mental and physical disabilities — let Blumenthal go Sept. 27 saying only that they wanted to take the agency “in a different direction.” Today, Blumenthal says he has a similar job on the East Coast after turning down a job offer from Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to oversee efforts to revamp the state’s sheltered workshops.

   But as he builds a new life, the Kansas native said he still wants Johnson County to pay for what he considered to be shabby treatment. In a Jan. 16 memo to county commissioners, released recently to The Star, Blumenthal said the JCDS board did not support his efforts to hold staff responsible for deficiencies found in a stinging internal audit of the agency under previous leadership.

   Bill Miller, the county’s internal auditor, cited the agency 33 times for lax management and oversight. And it was Blumenthal, the auditor said, who worked quickly to solve the agency’s problems and restore accountability.

   “I do feel that my strong pursuit to correct long standing problems at JCDS such as those cited in the auditor's report and my effort to hold staff accountable was not supported by the board who resented the facts supported by the audit,” Blumenthal wrote in the memo. “I do feel that the county needs to seek recourse to repair the damage done to my family and me; and the county needs to exert its authority over the JCDS board by changing its status to advisory.”

   County commissioners have taken no action on the memo. Chairwoman Annabeth Surbaugh and board attorney Don Jarrett, declined to discuss the “personnel matter.” Earlier, Commissioner Ed Peterson said he endorsed Blumenthal’s vision, but said the probationary employee had a "management style and personality that just didn’t fit the agency very well."

   Blumenthal has forwarded the recent memo to District Attorney Phill Kline and said he would request an investigation. But in an e-mail response this week, Kline states: "I understand your (The Kansas City Star) desire to obtain comment, however, I will not provide one."

   Said Blumenthal: “I do not seek to make this matter any more public than it already is, but I also am disappointed in an absence of accountability by both the JCDS board and the County Commission.”

Posted by Finn Bullers

Comments

[Nick]

Right, wrong or indifferent, you just have to love the total audacity of someone who says in one breath, "I don't want to make this more public than it is", then promptly sends his written, typed and signed snivel to an openly hostile news outlet.

[Gentle Ben]

Phill Kline was totally irrelevant to this piece. Does Bullers ever do anything that's not an outright hatchet job? Zero credibility as a reporter. For all we know he made this entire thing up.